


One Foot in the Faerie Circle

by cryptid_librarian



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, OC, Power of Friendship, Princes of the Apocalypse, Self-Insert, Whump, i actually roll dice for these encounters so if it kills me it kills me, in which we learn to respect the feelings of NPCs, level 1 warlocks are really squishy, morally questionable warlocks, not super graphic though, sometimes that's just how the d20 crumbles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 14:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20047825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptid_librarian/pseuds/cryptid_librarian
Summary: Ash steps into a faerie circle for the experience(TM) and not-so-accidentally makes a deal with an archfey. She is plunged into an unfamiliar forest and slowly comes to realize that she has become trapped in her dnd campaign. Will she be able to survive long enough as a 9 AC Warlock to figure out how to get home, or will she decide perhaps being stuck in the fantasy world isn't so bad after all?Honestly, just a shameless self-insert that gives me an excuse to roll dice to see if Fantasy Me dies or not.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which stepping into faerie circles is maybe not the best idea and shrubs are more dangerous than they seem

The sound of nature swelled around me as I meandered through the trails behind my house. The incessant chirping of various birds might have been enough to drive lesser mortals insane, but if I could survive a seven-hour shift in my library’s youth services department, I could survive anything. I took a deep breath in and let myself surrender to the cacophony of wildlife hidden between the trees— a few trees to the east, a woodpecker was drilling into a birch with a steadfast determination; in a bush to my left, a chipmunk waited in fear as I passed by, an acorn nibbled on in its anxiety; far above, the screech of a vulture, hungry for its next meal. I let the music of my local wildlife ease the memories of children screaming over stolen toys and the sound of the youth game computer music stuck on dizzying repeat. 

I continued walking, no real destination in mind besides further northward into the twisting woods. After a few minutes of leisurely walking, the narrow trail I had been on opened into a wide expanse of land. I have walked these trails since I was five, but the sight before me was one I had never seen before. Ten or so feet in front of me, in the center of the clearing, was a peculiar circle of wildflowers and mushrooms, their placement seeming both random and purposefully ordered. Being well-read in the category of fantasy myths and legends, I could recognize a faerie circle when I saw one. Most legends, wisely, advise against stepping into the trap of a faerie circle, providing warnings of dances to the death or other curses that could occur. And yet, what fun was life without a little risk?

Stepping forward into the grove, I felt the thrum of excitement in my veins, a desire to see what mischief might lie in wait within nature’s most tempting circle. As I continued on, I paled even more than my fair complexion should healthily allow as I felt the top of my sneaker catch on an exposed root. Windmilling violently, a clutz since birth, I stumbled forward into the grove, falling to my knees within the circle of mushrooms. 

“Graceful as always,” I muttered to myself, standing with a scowl as I try to scrape the dirt off my newly ripped jeans.

An airy chuckle interrupted my groaning as I fell silent, looking up in shock to see a figure in front of me. “Graceful indeed! It has been such a long while since I enjoyed a fun fall through my humble circle.”

The figure before me appeared to be at least seven feet tall, but there was a glimmer surrounding her that seemed to twist reality. Her skin was cerulean blue, long white hair cascading in rivulets down her shoulders. She wore a long lace dress that melded into the forest floor at her feet, shifting from white to a mossy green. Most shocking of her visage was the unicorn horn protruding from her forehead.

“Uhm, th-thanks,” I stuttered, taken aback by the possibility I might be staring into the horn— I mean, eyes— of an actual faerie. “Glad to be of some amusement in these trying, tripless times.”

The figure smiled down at me. I can’t tell if her look was for a new friend or a possible meal. “Can I have your name, lithe one?”

I cocked my head, a smirk gracing my otherwise tense features. “I’ve read warnings never to relinquish a name to a faerie, but I will tell you that you can call me Ash. But my name is not as interesting as what yours might be, enchantress?”

“Very wise for one so young and untouched by the grace of the fair folk. I am known as Lurue, the Unicorn Queen.” Lurue bent forward to get a better look at me, seeming to take a tally of my strengths and weaknesses in a second’s glance. “Now tell me, what is a wise one doing stumbling into a faerie’s trap?”

“Well,” I drawled, adjusting my glasses with a chuckle. “I may have tripped on my way in here, but it was with a purposeful movement that I stepped inside your circle. I figured it was a one-of-a-kind adventure that I would be foolish to walk past.”

The Unicorn Queen straightened up, her eyes sparkling in joy at some new idea. “So, you are a seeker of adventure? I too am fond of what a life of adventure has to offer. Perhaps you would like the opportunity to expand your horizons and spread a little lighthearted chaos to spice up the boring routines of mortal life?”

A hand reached towards me, not so much imposing as alluring, a doorway to something a little more exciting than what living in the same small town for nineteen years had provided for me so far. You shouldn’t make deals with faeries; I knew that as well as I knew how boring my days had become since leaving the exciting environment of college away from home. And yet, with a deal only promising a chance at adventure, how bad of a cost could there be?

I reached forward shyly before gaining courage and crossing the distance. I felt Lurue’s hand gently but securely grasp my own, a welcoming curve to her lips. She held my hand for a solid second, shaking it in a gesture of finality, and I had the thought that Paris might be nice this time of year, just as the ground below my feet opened up and I was for a moment frozen in the air, eyes locked with the Unicorn Queen, before she faded from view, taking with her the hand that had been the only thing still holding me in the circle. I had a moment to think, “never walk into a faerie’s circle,” before I was plunged into an inky darkness with no time for even a single scream.

* * *

I awoke face first on a forest floor, an array of leaves sticking to my face. As I wedged myself up onto my elbows, I rubbed furiously at my face as I was pretty sure I had somehow gotten some leaves up my nose. Pushing up to steady myself against a nearby oak, I laughed in relief. When I tripped earlier, I must have hit my head in the fall and had a bit of a midsummer’s night dream. Of course there was no faerie to take my soul; it was only a harmless concussion to blame! I patted myself down to remove the rest of the dirt and leaves from my clothing before glancing around nervously, realizing my surroundings did not look familiar at all. Did I really hit my head that hard to not be able to recognize my own trails? Shaking the fog from my mind, I grit my teeth in determination. I refused to become a picture on the back of a milk carton after becoming lost in my own backyard!

I glanced around anxiously, but no path sparked anything in my mind. Yet, standing around in one place would do no good, so I resolutely stalked forward into the closest path. I bounded forward, exuding a confidence I hadn’t earned, when a vine snaked around my ankle and dragged me back down to the forest floor. The wind nearly knocked out of me, I looked behind me to see the vine traced back to a nearby shrub. I scrambled back up and tried to back away in a daze, when a claw-like vine erupted from the shrub to rake across my chest. Fortunately, the leaves didn’t manage to make much headway against me and I was able to back away a few steps further. The shrub, for some godforsaken reason, was able to strike again faster than I could respond, but again causing no lasting damage. As I fumbled in my pocket for something to fight a _ shrub _with, I felt a heat grace my palm and pulled out a small metal circle, on which was emblazoned a quarter moon surrounding the head of a unicorn. 

“Oh fuck,” I whispered. Was this an arcane focus, an actual gotdamn focus? “I actually made a pact with a fey, didn’t I?”

Well, when in fantasy Rome.

Giving it my best shot, I focused on the new dark energy brewing within me and threw an eldritch blast at the approaching shrub. And I immediately missed. Not willing to be bested by a monster shrub, I cast toll the dead in my frustration. The shrub, seemingly hiding some deep wisdom, was unaffected by my first attempts at magic. Perhaps I was just hallucinating after all…

As I was contemplating my sanity, the shrub leapt towards me again, but this time I managed to dodge it, not wanting to risk getting injured on the off-chance the shrub was real.

I held the symbol up to my chest, squeezing my eyes shut for a moment. “If I’m not insane, please, for the love of someone, do _ something _.” 

Holding the symbol foreword, I once again attempted to summon an eldritch blast, and this time I saw a bolt of blue strike through the advancing shrub, taking with it a fair bit of the green shrubbery. Feeling emboldened, I attempted to cast toll the dead again as well. Unfortunately, the shrub still managed to shake off the necrotic energy.

The shrub, seemingly riled that I managed to do some damage, raked another thorned vine across me, but again was unable to do any damage. I summoned the bells to toll even louder, desperate to be free of this burdensome beast. This time, the spell sunk in as the shrub quivered in pain. I followed it up immediately with another eldritch blast, cutting through most of the shrub’s remaining defenses.

It limped forward slowly, if a shrub could limp, and attempted halfheartedly to gain the upper-hand against me. Unfortunately for the shrub, there was not enough of it remaining to successfully get a hit in. More in pity than in defense at this point, I turned a final eldritch blast towards the shrub and watched as it fell, motionless, to the forest floor, disintegrating a bit and melding with the surrounding greenery.

“I’m unstoppable— I killed a shrub,” I deadpanned, toeing the shrub disinterestedly. “Nature quivers before me.”

I looked curiously at the symbol in my palm, then back around to the dense unfamiliar forest. “Let’s go see what trouble I’ve gotten myself into this time.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which I make a friendly acquaintance and realize becoming a warlock has made me a bit of an asshole

Holding fast to the symbol that saved me from, at the least, catching poison ivy from the living shrub, I started heading deeper into the forest. Coming to a branch of multiple paths, I tried to listen to get a sense of which direction might lead out of the woods and towards any sort of civilization. I closed my eyes, took a deep calming breath, and heard … nothing. 

“It’s not like I’m a girl scout,” I grumbled, starting down a random path. I glared skeptically at the symbol in my hand. “When I said adventure, I was thinking something more exotic, not getting lost in a forest.”

Focused on complaining to my inanimate symbol, I didn’t manage to spot the two rats lunging out of the weeds to nip at my ankles. One of them managed to get a nibble in, but I was able to quickly jump out of the path of the other. Squeaking furiously, they both tried to jump at me again, but again missed. 

“Rats?! Why does it have to be rats,” I shrieked as I backed away, throwing an eldritch blast at one as I go. With a barely perceptible yelp, the rat was propelled against a nearby tree and lay still. I turned to the remaining one and reached behind me, surprised to grasp a long quarterstaff. “Where the fuck did I get—? Oh, who cares,” I muttered as I took a swing two-handed at the remaining rat. The last rat soon joined its friend, crumbled on the ground.

Purposely not looking at the two rat corpses, I hurried away a few feet and knelt down, realizing I needed to take stock of what items I gained when I fell into this oddly hostile forest. Setting the quarterstaff next to me in case another rat or shrub decided to make me its dinner, I pulled a backpack off of my back. Oddly, I didn’t remember walking into my trails with a backpack on, but I wouldn’t complain about having some items to help me survive in this unfamiliar wilderness. I already found the strange arcane focus radiating strong eldritch energy in my pocket earlier, so I kept that nearby. I pulled out two daggers, nearly cutting myself in the process, and looped them into sheaths on my belt, which led me to realize I was suddenly wearing leather armor. I have never owned armor in my life. Thinking back on how many hits I was taking from just a shrub and some rats, I worried that my armor wasn’t actually that useful, but I pushed that worry aside to keep looking through my pack. Worryingly, I pulled out a crossbow. I may have went to archery camp for a few summers, but that definitely didn’t prepare me to use a full-on crossbow, with which I was more likely to hit myself than any enemy. With that thought, I shoved the crossbow back in the bag to possibly be used later. I pushed aside items that seemed to be from a dungeoneer type pack, with items like crowbars, hammers, torches and rations, in favor for a writer’s kit and a borrowed book about cryptids that, honestly, was very on brand for me. I moved those items to the top, to enjoy later when I was finally out of this godforsaken forest. Seeing nothing else of use in the backpack, other than 10 gold pieces which I would definitely be using later at the nearest tavern I could make it to, I reshouldered my pack and stared at the path ahead. 

As I tried to figure out which way I came from and which path I was attempting to follow, I heard a rustle to the east, about forty feet away. At first, I worried that it was another shrub attempting to sneak up on me, but then I began to hear a calming hum carried over the distance. Curious and hoping for some friendly presence finally, I attempted to sneak forward to catch a glimpse of the singer. Making my way through the dense overgrowth, not even the grass being pushed aside giving away my position, I spotted a tanned woman knelt beside a small garden. As I squinted to get a better look, I realized that her ears were pointed in the nature of a wood elf. I realized she is singing to the plants, and as I watched, the flowers began to bloom under her care. I kept silent, neither wanting to give away my position nor disrupt this calming ritual before it’s finished, but the figure had other ideas.

“Hello there, friend,” her voice, low and smooth, like the sound of crashing waves on a moonlit night, didn’t startle me like it should. “is there something you need help with?”

Surprised I was noticed despite my silence, I stepped forward, not caring to hide my position any further. “Greetings, I seem to be lost. Could you tell me where I am?”

The elf hummed her last few notes and stood, towering over me at six feet tall, though her height wasn’t uncomfortable. “We are in the Westwood, child.”

I nodded sharply, having no idea where the Westwood is. “Ah yes, the Westwood, of course.”

She cocked her head, curious. “It seems you are gravely unfamiliar with the area. How did you come to be here?”

Fuck, she’s perceptive. But I couldn’t be mad at her, try as I might, so I chuckled lightly. “That obvious am I? Here’s the thing… I was in my backyard and then I woke up in the middle of the forest, so your guess will probably be as good as mine.”

She seemed to think hard about how I could have gotten here, silent for a minute before smiling back in me. “Was your backyard in the sky? Perhaps you fell.”

“No, that’s not quite— Well, I do remember falling somewhere, but if I had fallen from the sky somehow, I’m sure I would be dead. I gather I’m fairly weak.”

She laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure you’re strong of heart, friend. I am Aspen, by the way. Aspen T’relle. I have not had anyone venture this far into The Westwood in quite some time, so I apologize that I was not ready for visitors. My garden is only half bloomed.”

I looked at her garden, which is a good 40 square feet of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. If this was only half grown, I was glad I arrived early. “Well, to me it looks beautiful, but I’m afraid I don’t know as much about gardening as you appear to. I’m Ash; it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Aspen nodded in agreement, but as she was glancing down, she noticed a spot of blood growing on my ankle from where the rat had bitten me. “Oh dear, you’re injured! Would you like me to heal that for you?”

As I was shaking my head no, as the bite barely bothered me, I noticed her taking out what must be her holy symbol. She’s a  _ cleric.  _ Now, that could come in handy if I was as weak as I felt. “No, I feel alright right now. Thank you kindly, though. But I hate to ask… would you be able to guide me out of this forest?”

Aspen looked nervous, glancing back towards what appeared to be the small cabin she must live in. “I don’t know, I haven’t left my home in ages—”

I nodded understandingly while letting a small pout be visible, attempting to put on the charm. “Of course, I don’t mean to be a bother. It’s just that merely getting here has nearly cost me my life, and I worry that I’ll neither know the path to successfully escape these woods nor survive long enough in the chance I travel in the right direction. I just thought you seemed so attuned with nature that navigating these woods would be second nature for you. I thank you for talking with me, but I’ll get on my way and leave you to your work, ma’am.”

I made a show of turning away and limping away from Aspen, back in the direction I came from. Behind me, Aspen bit her lip in worry.

“Wait!” she called out, hurrying towards me and guiding me back with a supporting arm around my shoulders. “I cannot in good conscious let you face this wilderness without a guide. Why don’t you take a rest here while I pack some things, and I will help guide you out of Westwood and point you towards a town if I can.”

I breathed an honest sigh of relief, certain that going alone might have led to my death in this strange new world. “Ms. T’relle, I would be forever in your debt.”

“Not a worry, dear,” Aspen consoled as she led me to her house and gently yet firmly pushed me to sit in her porch swing. “Lay off that ankle while I pack my things.”

I nodded gratefully as she entered her house, listening as she bustled about within, packing who knows what for the journey ahead. I smiled and lay back on the swing, glad that this so-called adventure was finally turning around.

After about an hour of Aspen packing and her forcing me to rest, we set off away from her hut, heading east towards where Aspen explained the Long Road waited. It was cresting the afternoon, the sun still shining overhead and sounds of wildlife feeling less hostile from when I was journeying alone. I took a moment to watch Aspen as she led the way ahead, her movements natural and confident as if walking through the dense area was second nature to her. She had light orange hair that occasionally caught the sunlight and seemed to shine. Her hair was long and slightly unkempt, with a few small branches and leaves woven within, perhaps purposely or perhaps just as a product of extended time spent living deep in the Westwood. A heavy green cloak crested over her shoulders, beneath which she wore heavy scale mail armor. A circular stone shield hung at her side, emblazoned with a blooming rose over a sheaf of grain. Her holy symbol she took out earlier was hanging on her other side, with the same image on it as her shield. Beside the symbol, I also realized was a longsword— I didn’t think her the type to use such a weapon, as gentle as she had first appeared, but looks could be deceiving. 

“If I may ask,” I started, growing uncomfortable in the silence next to a total stranger. “how did you come to live out in these woods?”

For a moment, it looked like Aspen wasn’t going to respond, looking tense. But finally, she spoke, her voice soft. “I used to live in a temple, closer to civilization. It was a temple for Silvanus. We were raised with a fierce love for nature and a desire to protect it from being misused or desecrated. However, in recent years, nature and other elements have felt… unbalanced. The shifting power of the elements unsettled me, but I grew more worry as followers of my temple turned to more violent means to not just protect the earth, but to harness the power of nature for their own desires. As the power dynamics worsened, I felt I needed to walk away from that life and from the complexities of civilization.”

During her speech, she looked nervous, but now she looked around the forest we were walking through with a serene expression on her face. “I found a calmer life in the Westwood, and I have been spending years communing with nature and trying to find answers to explain why the elements are so unbalanced, with the help of the Earthmother.” She smiled down at her holy symbol, rubbing her thumb over the image as if for comfort. 

I swallowed nervously. This talk of unbalanced elements was sounding sickeningly similar, and I realized it was the plot of my current dnd campaign, one which our characters were still struggling with and finding no good solution for. But the Earthmother was new. “The Earthmother? Who is she?”

Aspen smiled down at me, stopping our journey eastward to turn her shield towards me. “The Earthmother is the deity who reached out to me during my isolation in these woods, while I was troubled with the actions of my previous temple and deity Silvanus. Her name is Chauntea, and she is a goddess of life, mother of the natural world we all walk through, while Silvanus is a god of wild magic, a more destructive force. Chauntea helped me discover the importance of serenity and upholding empathy with all creatures.” 

“She seems nice,” I admitted, pushing my symbol deeper into my pocket. Did I have a deity now in the form of Lurue? What exactly was our relationship, if we even had one? Or was meeting her at the faerie circle the only time I would get to see her, and I was on my own now? It certainly felt more like the latter, though these new magic abilities were useful. 

“We should keep moving,” I said, moving ahead the way Aspen had been leading. “I’m afraid I won’t be much use when night falls.” Fucking lack of darkvision— this was why I liked playing drows.

We continued walking for several more hours. Nature seemed to respond to Aspen’s very presence, paths revealing themselves to her and any hostile creatures that might be hidden among them choosing to keep their distance. Aspen looked as if she could travel forever, but as dusk set in, I found myself narrowly avoiding tripping on an exposed root, a firm hand on my arm saving me from an ungraceful fall.

“Perhaps we should rest for the night,” Aspen suggested, not waiting for a response as she led me a few feet further into a small clearing.

I took a seat on a nearby log, rummaging through my pack for supplies to start a fire as Aspen gathered some sticks and logs to feed a flame. After the fire was going and we were relatively comfortable, I turned my attention back to my new wood elf friend— acquaintance? “Why don’t you rest first; I can keep watch.”

Aspen looked concerned. “Are you sure?”

_ No,  _ I thought, once again filled with a low fear as I looked around at the shadows edging in on us. I was trapped in a life threatening dnd campaign without a dm to watch over me, so I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. “Yes, I’ve got this. You’ve been so kind leaving your home at a short notice to help me out, so why don’t you rest and I’ll wake you in a bit to take over.”

Aspen thanked me and bedded down a few feet away from me on the other side of the fire. She didn’t so much fall asleep as enter a light trance, her eyes appearing only half closed in the flickering firelight. I stared out into the distance, cursing my poor vision in the dark and let my hearing do most of the work for my watch. I listened to the faint sound of wildlife, now quieted down since the afternoon. Somewhere in the far distance, I could hear the faint gurgle of a passing stream. I stayed awake, hand closed tightly around my symbol, ready for any danger that might fall upon me in the absence of Aspen’s experienced watch. No danger came, and after what felt like four hours, I woke Aspen for her watch and fell back into the dewey grass. I thought I would have trouble sleeping, but found my eyes immediately slipping closed and falling into a deep sleep.

* * *

I woke to the sound of something sizzling, and I bolted upright, worried that I had caught fire in the night. Looking down, I was relieved to see I wasn’t burnt to a crisp, but there was a blanket over me that I didn’t recall falling asleep under.

Aspen, noticing my confusion, spoke up from her place by the fire, where she was roasting what appeared to be jerky— from what kind of animal, I couldn’t tell. “You were shivering slightly and I was worried you might catch a cold, so I covered you with my blanket. Here, have some breakfast before we continue forward.”

I nodded my thanks while hungrily digging into the jerky, not having realized just how starving I was. After eating, I folded up Aspen’s blanket and handed it back to her. “Thanks again, for all of this. Are you ready to head off?”

Aspen nodded and again took up the lead, leaving their campsite behind and entering a narrow path lined with tall, seemingly-ancient trees. We traveled for less than an hour in companionable silence before reaching a fork in the path. Aspen barely had to contemplate the two options before choosing the branching path on the right. Having never traversed this area, in real life or in the dnd campaign, I followed without argument. After only about ten minutes of traveling the new path, the narrow trail opened into a small shaded grove, the trees above crowding together forebodingly, blocking out most of the sun. 

I went to walk forward, but Aspen was stopped in front of me and flung out an arm to keep me back. I stared at her in confusion before focusing my gaze on the area head, which was crisscrossed with a grid of thick webs. Aspen directed my gaze further towards a darkened spot in the distance. Twenty feet from us, three spiders were crouched, eyeing us in hungry anticipation. While not giant spiders, they were still larger than any spider I would have encountered in my shower back home, and I was not a fan. Aspen tilted her head to the right, where I could also see two more spiders lying in wait for us to get trapped in their web. Forming a silent plan to attack the creatures before they could attack us, Aspen gently tapped a hand on my shoulder, bringing her holy symbol lightly to her lips to cast resistance on me. She then turned her attention on a spider to her right and attempted to throw a sacred flame at it, but it was able to scuttle out of the path of radiant energy that surged from her palm. I stepped away from Aspen, getting within ten feet of the three spiders on the left. Taking out my arcane focus, I felt a new ability building within me. My eyes glowed purple as a faintly pink glow seemed to emanate from my skin for a moment before fading. The first two spiders scuttled back in fear of my fey presence, but the third was unaffected, itching to scuttle nearer. Seeing that spider drawing nearer, I summoned an eldritch blast, which hurtled into the spider, tossing it in the air until it landed in the distance, unmoving.

Aspen again attempted to cast sacred flame, this time hitting the spider that had originally dodged and disintegrating it in radiant energy. She charged forward in front of the final spider on the right, unsheathing her longsword and taking a swing, cutting the spider in half. I once again summoned an eldritch blast at one of the two remaining spiders, but the shot went wide, carving into a nearby tree instead. Glancing behind me and seeing Aspen making quick work with her longsword, I took out my quarterstaff and held it aloft, waiting for any spider that might attempt to attack me. 

The fear in the spiders’ eyes seemed to fade as they burst out of the shadows and both leapt at me, who was the closest to them. One jumped at me but is unable to bite through my armor, while the other was able to sink its fangs into the ankle that had previously been targeted by a rat. The bite itself doesn’t hurt much, but I felt a slight thrum of poison try to seep into my veins, but I was able to shake it off. I attempted to smack the spider digging into my ankle away with my quarterstaff but missed, overwhelmed by being somewhat surrounded by the tiny beasts.

Before I could even think of calling out for help, Aspen appeared at my side and tries to strike down the spider with her longsword, but her swing goes wide, digging into the soft dirt. Instead she tried to summon enough holy energy to cast sacred flame again, but the burst of radiant energy fizzled out before reaching its target.

Frustrated that our attacks kept missing, I cast toll the dead, the foreboding dissonance of bells surrounding the spider on my left, causing it to quiver in pain before falling still. Trying to keep up the momentum, I brought my quarterstaff down near the final spider but again missed. The spider, in response to seeing its fellows struck down, dug its fangs into my ankle again, causing another flash of pain, but not managing to inject poison into my system.

Aspen curved around to the other side of the spider, bringing down her longsword in determination. The sharp blade pierced through the curved body of the spider, pinning it to the forest floor. I shuffled away from the spider corpses, briefly getting a shoe stuck in a web before shaking it off with disgust. A pained gasp had me glancing up in worry, fearing there had been another spider hiding in wait that now flung itself at an undefended Aspen. However, there were no more spiders in sight, but I was able to follow Aspen’s concerned gaze towards the other end of the grove. Two corpses, rotted beyond recognition but not old enough to be completely decomposed, were encased in a thin coating of web. Aspen started over and I followed, curious as to what loot these bodies might be hiding. After all, what was a world of dnd without the promise of some treasure?

Aspen was kneeled between the bodies as I shuffled over, kneeling on the other side of the body and making a show of checking for cause of death. “I’m not sure the size of those spiders would have been able to take down both of these people, even if they had been caught by surprise,” I commented as I reached my hand through a webbed section to disentangle a small pouch from the corpse’s belt. 

Finishing her prayer, Aspen also examined the body. “The bite marks on their neck and torso look the same size, but the pallor of their skin makes me think poison must have set in and done most of the job. Do you feel alr—” Aspen glanced up and noticed me examining the contents of the pouch: twelve gold pieces, not bad. 

I looked up at her halted sentence, then back down at the pouch in my hands. “Well, it’s not like these two will need this anymore.”

“Disturbing the dead seems a foolhardy business to me,” Aspen stood in a fluent motion, adjusting her cloak and setting her holy symbol back on her belt. “We should carry on; there might be more spiders hidden in this grove.”

I stumbled to my feet as she walked away, getting snagged by a web again before pulling myself free. I pocketed the twelve gold and follow behind.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which awkward silences are had and bridges are crossed

The journey further into the east was filled with a heavy silence; even the vague sounds of wildlife seemed to be snuffed out by the awkward tension permeating the air. I kept glancing at the back of Aspen’s head, a casual remark ghosting in the back of my throat before dying before escaping my lips. Before reaching the webbed grove, Aspen had always appeared the perfect picture of serenity, a lightness in her shoulders that could not be erased by any struggle. Now it was hard to remember that lightness, her shoulders rigid, encased in a tenseness she did not seem willing to relinquish. She marched ahead, her pace determined and unfaltering. I’ve overstayed my intrusion into her solitary life, and I supposed she would be happy to be rid of me. 

I tried not to be upset by this thought of Aspen being upset with me; after all, this was only a game — wasn’t it? And yet, as my ankle stung with the still raw spider bites, the feeling of webs beneath my finger nails, I worried about the frightening realness of the world around me. When this was just a fantasy world I pretended to play in with my friends, it had just been a fun thing to do on the weekends. I was always safe in the comfort of my own room, and I didn’t have to be concerned with such insignificant things like upsetting NPCs. Because that’s what Aspen was, right? Just an NPC. Surely, her personality was just an act, a simple result of rolled statistics and generated backgrounds. 

I appraised her again, noting the way her hand never strayed far from the holy symbol at her side, the way her thumb craved to dig circles in the metal as she imprinted the raised image to memory. From what little I could see of the side of her face, the skin around her eyes was taut, as if she was putting all of her remaining energy into staying emotionless, focused on her task of leading me out of the wilderness so she could get back to her simple life, tending her magic garden. Perhaps before my abrupt entrance into her life, the forest hadn’t been so outright hostile, and it was just a product of my unnatural existence in this foreign world. Perhaps I was a curse.

Lost in my thoughts, I narrowly avoiding crashing into Aspen as she came to an abrupt stop. I realized the path we had been travelling opened up into another clearing. Aspen stepped to the side, further away from me, and raised a stiff, disinterested arm forward.

“Over that bridge and down that last trail is the end of the Westwood. It exits out into the Long Road. Following it north will lead you to a town,” Aspen explained, her voice eerily monotone. 

I scanned the bridge she referenced anxiously. It hung over a river that seemed at least ten feet deep, but it could span much deeper than it seemed. The bridge was thin, with aged wood that seemed ready to disintegrate on the spot. A few of the bridge’s slats were missing, no doubt having caved through when some previous hapless adventurers attempted to cross it. I stepped forward a few feet, chewing my bottom lip as I gazed into the murky water. What bodies might have lost their lives at the cost of this bridge and now lie trapped within the water below?

“Are—” I cleared my voice as it came out embarrassingly strained at a higher octave than my usual low, dulcet tones. “Are you sure this bridge is, uh, reliable?”

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Aspen commented, already turning away to look back the way we had come, though not yet leaving me behind entirely.

I nodded resolutely, solely for myself than for Aspen, who had for the past couple hours of traveling been steadfastly avoiding looking my direction. “Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Well, uh,” I fought the nerves that had been building within me to gently grasp her shoulder and nudge her to look my direction, grip light and barely touching. “Thank you again. I know my untimely arrival has disrupted your routine; you didn’t have to come with me, but I am grateful that you did. We may… have different mindsets and beliefs, but I appreciate you, for putting up with me. I’ll… I’ll get out of your hair, now.”

Before I could somehow mess up this cleric’s life any more just by my sheer cursed presence, I turned and strode towards the bridge. A rustle in the grass behind me assured me that Aspen had finally made her leave of me. Approaching the bridge, I did my best to quell the churning in my stomach as I scanned the sturdiness of the bridge and the river below. I knew I was being foolish— even if the bridge were unreliable, it’s not like a fall into the river would kill me. Sure, it’d be embarrassing, and it would take an uncomfortable amount of time to get the wetness out of my clothes without the luxury of a dryer— did this fantasy world have dryers? — but she would survive. Testing the first slat with my foot and being relieved when it didn’t immediately crumble to dust, I rolled out the tension in my shoulders and walked forward, thinking the swifter my pace, the faster I’d be off this bridge and headed to who knows what fate beyond the woods. I was halfway across when I felt more than heard an echoing splinter, and the slat beneath my feet gave way. I swung out my arms, hoping to be graceful enough to at least grab onto the bridge as I fell through, but my fingers closed dishearteningly around empty air. Before I knew it, my head was plunged under the water and all I could see was darkness.

It took me a moment of flailing in the chilling water to realize which direction was up, but finally I was able to grasp hold of my senses to kick my way up to the surface, dog paddling wildly as my head broke through and I was able to take a deep wheezing gasp, spluttering out water that had gotten into my mouth at the suddenness of my plunge. Over the sound of the water splashing in my swimming efforts, I heard my name being called in a panic and the sound of heavy boots slapping against the dirt, of metal scraping up grass at the edge of the river bed. Aspen had collapsed to her knees at the edge of the river and was reaching a hand over towards me, her dark grey eyes filled with concern and some other emotion I couldn’t place in my drenched panic. 

“I— I’m okay, I think,” I murmured as I fought my way through the water towards her outstretched grasp. I had never had to swim in armor before, and I was finding that I was not that skilled at it. 

“Here, take my hand,” Aspen’s voice is soft again, though there is still a masked tension behind the gentle tone. I swim towards her, but hesitate for a moment, staring at her arm reaching towards me. My mind flashes to a similarly outstretched hand just a day ago— was it just a day? Taking that hand was what had gotten me into this mess, so eager for any excitement that I refused to consider the consequences. “Ash, dear, you’re going to catch a cold; let me help you out, please,” there was a waver in Aspen’s voice at the end, a pained indent above her eyes as she tried to reach even further over the river edge towards me.

I hurried forward, not wanting to cause Aspen anymore distress; she should have been able to be free of me already, but my clumsiness and carelessness had forced her back to me, too kind and good to just walk away like she should have when I first showed up at her garden. But I was selfish, and not willing to die just yet in this fantasy world, so I reached up to take her hand—

A cold weight curled around my ankle, and I had enough time for my eyes to grow even wider as I was once again pulled beneath the water’s surface, this time not of my own doing. 

“Ash!” Aspen’s voice was distorted by the time it reached my ears under the water, but the terror was clear. 

I fought my way back to the surface but the weight on my ankle was to strong for me to be able to pull away from. I reached my hand towards the surface, dots beginning to appear in my vision as I was once again deprived from much needed oxygen, when a firm hand grasps my own and pulls me back up. I broke through the water’s surface sputtering, this time not able to catch my breath as quickly as before. A sound of rattling from directly behind me caused me to hold my breath, twisting around slowly in fear, one hand still lying limp in Aspen’s grip. Turning, I came face-to-face with a husk of a creature, bits of flesh still hanging here and there from it’s warped bones.The pits where I could only assume eyes used to be was gaping and black, and I feared if I stared into them too long, I could become lost in its feral gaze. With a gutteral snarl, the skeleton raised a shortsword from beneath the water and attempted to skewer me to the river bed, only just missing my drenched frame by an inch. I had but a moment to see a similarly haunting skeleton bob out of the water ten feet behind the first before grounding arms looped around me and pulled me free of the river.

I struggled to get my feet to move through the muddy terrain, pushing Aspen back and away from the river bed as I moved forward. I gasped in pain as I felt the lick of the skeleton’s sharp blade slice against my back, cutting easily through my thin armor and leaving a trail of blood to begin coursing down my skin, but I pushed past the shock to keep running forward, stopping twenty feet behind Aspen as I cowered in terror. That strike alone left me wheezing, and I realized how close I could easily come to death in this dangerous environment. As the myriad of deaths that could befall me in this fantasy world flashed before my eyes, I stuttered out a string of arcane words, feeling a calming sheath of ice surround me as an extra form of armor, casting Armor of Agathys more as instinct than anything. Seeing the skeleton shambling its way out of the river bank, uncomfortably close to Aspen, I held out my symbol of Lurue and felt the rush of an eldritch blast leave my fingertips, but my shivering causes the shot to go wide and crash harmlessly into the wavering blue of the river.

The skeleton that had sliced through me brings itself to stand, not quite as tall as Aspen but still daunting in its own right, and slashes its shortsword towards her, finding an opening in her scale mail defenses and leaving a crimson stain. Aspen only toughens against the blow, refusing to cower before the undead menace before her. Focused on the skeleton in front of her, Aspen failed to see the second skeleton climb its way out of the murk before another rusted shortsword was being thrust out, this time piercing directly into her gut and leaving only room for a pained grunt from the wood elf, a gurgle of blood edging out of her clenched lips.

Aspen stumbles back slightly, the sword embedded in her gut nearly bringing her down, before straightening resolutely and unsheathing her longsword, focusing on the skeleton whose sword was still embedded in her gut. Her sword impacted but wasn’t able to do much damage, her attack weakened in her pain. Feeling desperate, Aspen fumbled for her holy symbol at her waist, bringing it up to whisper a short prayer to the Earthmother before releasing a burst of holy fire, which surrounded the skeleton before her and brought it to its knees in pain, though still snarling up at her.

Seeing the blood drip heavily from Aspen’s impaled stomach, I paled considerably, feeling a nausea edging up my throat. Pushing past my fear, I stepped forward and channeled my anger into the arcane focus in my palm. The eldritch blast that followed careened into the skeleton that had so gravely injured my cleric, which tumbled backwards into the river, whatever spirit that had been allowing it to remain animate dissipating as it sank back into its watery grave. Holding on to the anger thrumming in my pulse, I cast toll the dead, watching the remaining skeleton pause in pain at the chorus of bells invading its mind. 

However, the bells did little to crush the blood lust lurking in the skeleton’s empty eyes, and as it gazed turned back to a swaying Aspen in front of it, I called out before I could think better of it. “Hey, numskull! Why don’t you come pick on someone your own size?”

An audible crack sounded as the skeleton cocked it’s head, it’s neck bones seeming to snap to allow the moment, and as the skeleton turned its attention away from Aspen and began shambling its way towards me, I had the unfortunate realization that I was nowhere near its size. Aspen stumbled around in shock as the skeleton lost interest in her, worried gaze falling on me as the skeleton loomed towards me. She swung out with her longsword, but as she was already dizzy with blood loss, her swing went wide and scraped into the dirt below. I had a moment to stare apologetically at Aspen, sorry for having gotten her into this situation in the first place, before I blinked to find the skeleton towering above me. A sickening grin cracked across its skull before its shortsword was plunged slowly into my gut. If I hadn’t been blinded by the pain, I would have noticed my Armor of Agathys splinter, sending a blast of cold energy back on the skeleton, who in return barely flinched from its violent glee. I could only manage a pained exhale as the sword was yanked out in an uneven motion. My knees buckled as the sword in my gut had been the only force holding me upright, and I had a second to pray— to Lurue, to the Earthmother, to whatever dnd god might be listening to a morally questionable warlock— that Aspen would be spared and allowed to return to her peaceful grove, before darkness filled my vision and all was silent.


End file.
